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Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Cuban “Left”
Opposition and Annexationists: Two Wings of the Same Eagle

By Arnold August, Published in
Prensa Latina

In my previous article, titled “The
End of Ideology in Cuba?,” I created a fair amount of controversy in stating, “I
have always maintained that the most dangerous opposition to the Cuban
Revolution comes from the so-called left, and not from the openly right Plattists, or annexationists.” The majority of
readers praised the article; many others participated in the serious debate;
and only a couple very strongly objected to it, mainly singling out that
particular sentence.

Thus, let us deconstruct the
perception. It mentions the “openly right
Plattists, or annexationists.” This means that there exists in Cuba both the openly pro-U.S. opposition and the hidden annexationists. The latter
comprises these so-called “leftists.” Their narratives are carefully
constructed to include some (mild) criticism of the American economic, social
and political systems. They do not openly accept capitalism as an alternative,
as opposed to the annexationists, who quite frankly do hold the U.S. up as
their model. An American who has been living in Cuba as the adopted country for
a number of years wrote some thoughtful positive comments on the article and
the issue of socialism versus capitalism:

“Up North, in
its simplest form, you could reduce it to acceptance of the ‘lesser evil.’ Both
systems are flawed, but conveniently, socialism is more flawed, so let’s simply
not go there. Any changes to capitalism are purely cosmetic with the objective
of avoiding socialism. Here [in Cuba], since we have already arrived at
socialism, the argument presented is: capitalism has some good features, let us just add (‘sumar’) those to socialism. Since
the approach is to add to (‘sumar’), rather than subtract from (‘restar’), capitalism
– that is what makes the objective here reverse to the one up North. Instead of
improving socialism with the goal of avoiding
capitalism, their idea is to adopt capitalism’s best features, as though
both systems were compatible, with interchangeable parts, which of course they
are not.”

This is a very good point indeed.
One Cuban whom I consulted likened it to “using the spare parts of a Timex
watch to fix a Rolex.” In this analogy, of course, the Rolex is socialism,
while the Timex is capitalism. Nevertheless, the pieces making up both brands
are just not compatible. It may be argued by some of the so-called “left” that
Cuba is introducing certain market economy measures that amount to capitalism.
However, the market economy existed long before capitalism, even in the most
“primitive” systems. It is not an exclusive feature of any one system:
capitalism did not invent it. In contrast, Cuba’s changes amount to improving
the Rolex but with Rolex brand parts,
and not some old pieces from a totally different and incompatible brand.

Thus, the “left” opposition
objectively contributes to the American Dream of restoring capitalism in Cuba,
even though they of course vehemently deny this. To portray their
anti-capitalist image, some of them even define themselves as
“democratic-socialists” as opposed to the Cuban socialist system, which is supposedly
an authoritarian-type of socialism. The U.S.-centric view of systems
specializes in adding hyphenated tickets to concepts, such as democratic-socialists. “Democracy” is
perhaps the most manipulated concept in politics, an analysis that goes beyond
the scope of this short article. Suffice it to mention for the moment that,
based on the U.S.-centric view, the term democracy
serves as a code word to contradict socialism. In Cuba, when this “democracy”
tag is appended by sleight-of-hand, those in the North interested in subverting
the Cuban Revolution know that the individuals espousing hyphenated socialism
are in their ideological camp.

These and other similar trends
within the “leftist” opposition, although seemingly in contradiction with each
other, have at least one feature in common. Coming from different angles, they
all converge into one common mindset: the Cuban system and government are
“authoritarian,” the Communist Party of Cuba and the Army are omnipresent, and
the system is centralized whereby the state plays too much of a leading role
(even though Cuba has been decentralizing since 2008, but on its own terms
within socialism). This opposition outlook ostensibly favours socialism, but
their “socialism” is so very democratic. In order to foster this image, every
incident in the Cuban system is pounced upon in order to paint Cuba as
authoritarian. By relying mainly on some intellectuals, the “leftists” have set
their sights on atomizing and dividing Cuban society, with the goal of
destroying the unity it has been building since 1959.

In contrast, other Cuban commentators
supporting the openly right annexationist trend criticize the Cuban government
for not going far enough or fast enough in adopting what they also call “capitalist
measures.” The annexationists openly
advocate capitalism for Cuba under the tutelage of the U.S. This tendency also
blames the “authoritarian” government for holding back what they envisage as
Cuba’s inevitable slide into capitalism. Thus, “democracy” is manipulated by both
the so-called “leftists” and the openly pro-U.S. and capitalist right.

There is another common denominator
linking these two seemingly opposite extremes. There is no doubt that in Cuba
today people engage in lively discussion and debate about improving Cuba’s
socialism and political system. The attitude toward the U.S. in the new and
complicated post-December 17, 2014 context is, of course, tied to these
controversies. These deliberations are taking place at many levels and in
various circumstances in the Cuban social and political systems. Carrying on a
long-standing tradition, these debates constitute a feature of Cuban political
culture. If, at this time, one takes the Cuban media as an example, a range of
opinion articles is increasingly being published in the official press, such as
Granma and Juventud Rebelde. Some of the pieces are written by what one could
call “alternative” journalists and writers, such as Iroel Sánchez, Elier
Ramírez, Enrique Ubieta, Luis Toledo Sande and Esteban Morales, just to name a
few. These intellectuals and many others have their own active blogs and they
participate daily through social media to resist the U.S.-led cultural war.

However, when the “left” or right
opposition describes Cuba for the benefit of both foreign and some domestics
consumption (and make no mistake about it, their views can be found in the
foreign press hostile to Cuba), they invariably applaud and highlight what they
call “opposition” or “alternative” journalists. The “leftist” opposition forces,
supposedly the epitome of pluralism, cite only themselves and like-minded
opponents, a very monolithic approach. This is also how the U.S. establishment
media deals with debate. They cite only their own kind: a perverse consanguinity.
In contrast, the real Cuban alternative intellectuals (only some of whom are
mentioned above), those who work within the system for improvements, are
blacklisted (or even vilified) by the “leftists.” They bestow these credentials
on what they consider bona fide “alternatives,” invariably stirring up a
backwash of invitations for both the “left” and right to travel to the U.S. or
appear on foreign media in Cuba in exchange for delivering the goods: “Cuba is
authoritarian or a dictatorship. Amen.” This quid pro quo is quite flagrant, to
the extent that for a Cuban to receive these credentials from them could be
considered the kiss of death.

Thus, both the “leftist” opposition
and the openly right-wing annexationists are two wings of the same American
eagle. One cannot underestimate their influence on some intellectual sectors in
Cuban society – it would be naive to do so. However, it would also be wrong for
the two wings to overestimate their appeal to Cuban society, because Cuban
socialism is characterized by an exceptionally high level of political
consciousness broadly accumulated over many decades. This allows Cuban
revolutionaries and patriots to see through their manipulation and thus in the
process further enrich the Cuban Revolution’s ideological heritage.

Arnold August, a Canadian journalist and lecturer, is the
author of Democracy in Cuba and
the 1997–98 Elections and, more recently, Cuba and Its Neighbours:
Democracy in Motion. Cuba’s neighbours under consideration are, on the
one hand the U.S.and
on the other hand Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Arnold can
be followed on Twitter @Arnold_August and FaceBook